Cecilia

If Humberto Solás were still alive he would laugh at those calling «Cecilia» a piece of melodramatic cinema as if it were a fault, when that was probably the genre he felt more at ease as a filmmaker and what he intended to do with the film. In «Lucía» (1968), his best-regarded motion picture, it was obvious that he enjoyed above anything filming the first of the three stories, taking place in the 19th century. So it was not strange that he revisited period melodrama, this time with the biggest budget ever had by a Cuban film at that time (or perhaps ever) to make an absolutely free adaptation of Cirilo Villaverde's «Cecilia Valdés o La Loma del Ángel» (Cecilia Valdés, or The Hill of the Angel), regarded as the national novel in Cuba.

Solás decided to give the old novel some relevance in the present (from a Marxist point of view, as he declared), with the help of his team of scriptwriters, including his longtime companion, film editor Nelson Rodríguez; Nelson's cousin Norma Torrado, film editor of Santiago Álvarez's classic documentaries; and Jorge Ramos. Together they introduced elements of Santería, the Yoruba religion and established a parallel between what they left of the story told by Villaverde, and the legend of two of the main gods of the Yoruba Olympus: the sensual Oshún and her lover Shangó, echoed by the love the rebel slave Pimienta (Miguel Benavides) has for Cecilia, leading to a tragic scene in the cathedral of La Habana.

In the novel, Cecilia Valdés was a young mulatto woman determined to marry a Spaniard. Unluckily for her, she chose Leonardo Gamboa, who turned out to be her brother. Solás, Rodríguez, Torrado, and Ramos, changed this, turning Cecilia into a grown-up woman who is in the verge of becoming a spinster, and moved the incestuous relationship from the lovers to Leonardo and his mother. They also gave prominence to the Cuban movement of independence from Spain, turning it into an icon in the figure of a young and beautiful César Évora, who had turned 20 years old at that time, and latter became a star of soap operas in México.

In his direction Solás gave full reign to exaggerated emotions, acting (mostly in the case of Raquel Revuelta, who was the top figure of the Cuban stage for various decades) and make-up. As the rich momma's boy, Imanol Arias looks as a effeminate weakling, a ghastly pale figure, almost a vampire roaming the dark streets of La Habana after a little girl. And let us not forget the music composed by Leo Brouwer, that underlines this bigger than life melodrama.

I first saw the international version, a reduced edit for exportation. When the projection was finished, I felt that I wanted to see more, the whole thing. Then I watched the version shown in Cannes (where it was a strong contender for the Palme d'Or) and finally the television series in five chapters, which is, I believe, the best way to appreciate this great work by Solás, that , no wonder, was his favorite motion picture. Every peso invested in the production can be seen, there was nothing wasted, and people have the chance to see some of Cuba's biggest artists on the screen -including singer Omara Portuondo as the owner of a bordello for the Spanish aristocracy in La Habana. Watch it if you have time, and if you are not in a rush to watch an action "movie".

To me the film was a propaganda piece to reiterate how awful slavery was, with vivid, though perhaps unverifiable, cruelty. How shallow and callow, fickle, and untrustworthy was the aristocracy, particularly the anti-hero, Leonardo. We are shown many instances how the ruling class exploits people of color and the lower classes. The story was based on what appears to be a Gothic novel and was so melodramatically interpreted it made me laugh. Except for the acting in a wonderful scene in which Leonardo's mother is bargaining with the 'governor/viceroy' to protect her son because she was sharing with him valuable information gained from him to thwart a lower-class/slave rebellion. The make-up of the principal actors looked fake, and gave them unnatural skin tones, which were distracting. Little or no background information was worked into the script to help viewers understand the place, time, and control in Cuba.

The film was Cuba's most ambitious project to date. The production design is dazzling. The cinematography is wild, vivid, epic. The film is free adaptation of Cirillo Villaverde's famous 19th century novel with the same title. The film is a mix bag. There are memorable moments like the nightmare of the slaves rebelion, of the final scene in the cathedral. On the other hand, the film sucumbs at times at its excessive theatricallity. But it is definetely worth watching.

It must have only been during the past few years that Humberto Solas's "Cecilia" became available in the United States. I actually liked Solas's later "Un hombre de exito" ("A Successful Man") better, as this one comes across as sort of a Jane Austen-style period piece. Daisy Granados plays the title character, trying to seduce a young aristocrat through santeria in 1830s Cuba.

A scene that I found really impressive was the beginning, when the slave woman tells the story of the African woman stolen off of her land. Such was certainly the fate of so many Africans. That whole sequence reminded of Jonathan Demme's "Beloved", what with the stories of slavery. And of course, there's eventually a slave rebellion. Slavery is the real history of the Americas.

All in all, worth seeing.